For certain electronic devices, it is particularly important to protect against tampering after the device has been sold or distributed to an end-user. For example, tampering is of particular concern for devices that receive sensitive data from other remote devices to store or process. Such an electronic device often employs data security operations, such as encryption, to ensure that the sensitive data is not exposed to unauthorized entities. Further, such a device may include physical countermeasures, such as a conductive tamper mesh, to deter and/or detect any unauthorized physical access to the electronic components that perform the security operations within the device.
While safeguards such as those described above provide protection to the inner circuitry of the electronic device, they do not necessarily protect the sensitive data at its most vulnerable point, such as during the initial transfer of the data into the device. For example, an attacker could intercept or acquire the sensitive data at the point of device entry before any data security operation can be performed on the data, where a physical countermeasure may be ineffective or impractical.